Big new SF tower project breaks ground. Well, not really.

1of12Dignitaries shovel dirt at the groundbreaking ceremony for the Oceanwide Center at First and Mission Streets in S.F. When completed by 2021, the tower will climb higher than the Transamerica Pyramid.Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle

2of12Champagne is served to guests to celebrate the groundbreaking for the 910-foot, 61-story Oceanwide Center in San Francisco.Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle

3of12Trace Gregg takes a look at a model of the Oceanwide Center project at the groundbreaking ceremony.Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle

4of12Organizers roll out a red carpet for invited guests attending the groundbreaking ceremony for the 910-foot, 61-story Oceanwide Center in San Francisco, Calif. on Thursday, Dec. 8, 2016. When completed in 2021, the residential and office tower on First Street will be the second tallest building in the city.Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle

5of12A man walks past a banner displayed for the groundbreaking ceremony for the 910-foot, 61-story Oceanwide Center in San Francisco, Calif. on Thursday, Dec. 8, 2016. When completed in 2021, the residential and office tower on First Street will be the second tallest building in the city.Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle

6of12Jane Bachmann (left) and Maria Wang view a model depicting the 910-foot, 61-story Oceanwide Center, Salesforce Tower and their environs at a groundbreaking ceremony in San Francisco, Calif. on Thursday, Dec. 8, 2016. When completed in 2021, the residential and office tower on First Street will be the second tallest building in the city.Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle

7of12China Oceanwide Holdings Group chairman Lu Zhiqiang (left) speaks with Luo Linquan, China's Consul General in San Francisco, at the groundbreaking ceremony for the 910-foot, 61-story Oceanwide Center in San Francisco, Calif. on Thursday, Dec. 8, 2016. When completed in 2021, the residential and office tower on First Street will be the second tallest building in the city.Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle

8of12A scale model of the 910-foot, 61-story Oceanwide Center rises behind invited guests at a groundbreaking ceremony in San Francisco, Calif. on Thursday, Dec. 8, 2016. When completed in 2021, the residential and office tower on First Street will be the second tallest building in the city.Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle

9of12Former Mayor Willie Brown was a no show at a groundbreaking ceremony for the 910-foot, 61-story Oceanwide Center in San Francisco, Calif. on Thursday, Dec. 8, 2016. When completed in 2021, the residential and office tower on First Street will be the second tallest building in the city.Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle

10of12Besides two major towers, San Francisco’s Oceanwide Center will include the preservation and restoration of buildings at 78 and 88 First St., both dating to the aftermath of the 1906 earthquake. The overall project is designed by Foster + Partners with Heller Manus Architects.Photo: � Foster + Partners

11of12Oceanwide Center, designed by Foster + Partners with Heller Manus Architects, will include a 910-foot tower on First Street and a 625-foot high-rise on Mission Street. The complex will include housing, offices, a hotel and a public plaza. The official groundbreaking is Dec. 8, 2016 and the buildings are scheduled to open to the public by 2021.Photo: Foster + Partners

12of12A panoramic rendering of San Francisco�s skyline-to-be. In the center is Salesforce Tower, which is now under construction, as is 181 Fremont St. on the left. The high-rise depicted to the right is Oceanwide Center, which begins construction in December 2016 and will climb 910 feet � 50 feet taller than the Transamerica Pyramid (far right). Credit: Foster + PartnersPhoto: Foster + Partners

No matter what architectural fads are in vogue, there’s one constant in downtown towers: Groundbreakings are an excuse to put on a show.

And the bigger the building, the bigger the show. Which explains the cloudy fenced-off fanfare Thursday morning near the corner of First and Mission streets in San Francisco.

“A groundbreaking ceremony for us architects is incredible. You pinch yourselves,” said Stefan Behling of the firm Foster + Partners, lead designer for Oceanwide Center. “So many projects start and then stop. When the event occurs and the cranes show up, you know it’s going to happen.”

Never mind that buildings are still being demolished where the main skyscraper of the four-building complex will rise 910 feet. Or that a gloomy mix of drizzle and rain consigned the show to a plastic tent, shovel-ready soil waiting within a long, raised planter.

This is a complex that, when completed by 2021, will climb higher than the Transamerica Pyramid and contain more space than the nearby Salesforce Tower. So the developers wanted to kick things off in style, and more than 200 people showed up to mark the occasion.

Event staff circled among early guests with platters of carrot-coconut muffins. Two models were on display near the entrance. One, nearly 5 feet tall, was detailed enough to have small figures on view inside the windows.

Melissa Barry gets a close-up look at a model of the Oceanwide Center plans.

Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle

As for the stage, the podium was flanked by flags representing the United States and the People’s Republic of China — a facet of the project that helped explain the large turnout.

The complex is named after Oceanwide Holdings, a Chinese firm with more than 100 subsidiaries and 10,000 employees.

“Thank you for joining us for today’s momentous occasion,” said Xiaosheng Han, executive board director and president of Oceanwide Holdings. He predicted the complex “will have a positive and lasting impact on San Francisco” as well as help “establish our brand.”

The local politicians who followed, not surprisingly, stressed benefits over brand.

Mayor Ed Lee talked about the $44 million that will be generated for affordable housing within a 1-mile radius of the project and an overall $130 million in funding for everything from cultural programs to transportation initiatives.

District Supervisor Jane Kim made similar points, highlighting how the development fees will be used in part to upgrade playgrounds in Chinatown.

“Oceanwide dug in pretty quickly,” Kim said, presumably referring to the firm’s community outreach rather than its benefits package. “As we build a high-density neighborhood, we need to ensure that there’s healthy and active open space.”

Every groundbreaking has variations of such upbeat rhetoric, just as there always will be coffee beforehand. But just as almond milk was an option to lighten the coffee, other aspects of Oceanwide Center’s launch signaled that this is 2016.

At the global level, the remarks by Consul General Luo Linquan of China’s local outpost emphasized the extensive economic bonds between his country and ours — perhaps an unstated rebuttal to the way President-elect Donald Trump has trash-talked China.

On the local front, Behling emphasized that the high-reaching towers will include foundations burrowed deep into the earth.

“You all know the ground in this area isn’t the best for towers,” Behling said, a discreet reference to the problems with the foundation of the sinking Millennium Tower less than two blocks away. “The (foundation) piles here will go down as much as 270 feet to bedrock.”

Forty-five minutes after comments began, it was time for the main event.

Commemorative shovels and helmets are lined up for the groundbreaking ceremony for the 910-foot, 61-story Oceanwide Center.

Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle

The speakers put on branded hardhats and grabbed their upscale shovels. They lined up behind the long planter box with “Oceanwide Center Groundbreaking Ceremony” spelled out in English and Mandarin.

“This is the shovel part, and then we will have a photo op,” event emcee Darlene Chiu Bryant of ChinaSF told the crowd.

Up went the shovels. They descended to an audible flurry of smart-phone snaps.

John King is The San Francisco Chronicle’s urban design critic, taking stock of everything from Salesforce Tower to public spaces and homeless navigation centers. A two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of two books on San Francisco architecture, King joined The Chronicle in 1992 and covered City Hall before creating his current post in 2001. He spent the spring of 2018 as a Mellon Fellow in Urban Landscape Studies at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C.